Designed in the Louis XVI style, this trestle-ended work-table, with ormolu-galleried border, would have been fitted with glass to protect the painted panel. The frame is blackened in the 'Etruscan' manner and its top with rectangular red and black pattern in the 'Pompeian' manner, was no doubt executed to accompany the framed coloured engravings of the Roman wall'paintings discovered in the Villa Negroni in the late 1770's (see lot )

This may be the 'Black table japann'd' listed in the Bathroom in the 1840 Inventory